Normal Map Filter not working properly

[Justin_Rettberg]

At least I don't think it is. I have been using this function for a while and it's been working just fine, but I just tried to use it and it's not working for me. I'm wondering if there's something I un-checked in preferences or something but I can't imagine what it could be.

So what's happening?

I have open a texture file (a picture of a rock, is a .JPEG but I tried .PNG as well). It is 512px X 512 px at 72 dpi.

I go up to the filter tab, select 3D -> Generate Normal Map.

It takes a few seconds to load up, and once it does, the material preview sphere comes up completely blank. Behind the normal map GUI, the texture also disappears as though the layer was turned off.

The thumbnail for the texture in the layers panel also displays a weird combination of colored bars, almost as if to show that the layer is corrupt or something.

I've tried playing with all of the various settings in the normal map GUI to try to get something to show up, but to no avail.

As I said before too, I have been able to use this function many times, but for some reason it just stopped working today. I've tried a few other JPEG files (ones that worked in the past) and they don't work either.

Can someone help me out? Thank you!

[Justin_Rettberg]

UPDATE:

I am not sure why but I never clicked okay to test the output. It will spit out a normal map but the preview function is still not working and I'm not sure why.

[Mylenium · Accepted solution]

Without exact system info nobody can tell you much. All 3D stuff uses some form of GPU acceleration, so it's critical that everything works properly in that department. Your description exactly sounds like that isn't the case.

Mylenium

[Justin_Rettberg]

Ahh. Thanks for the response. My video card has been failing in other areas recently so maybe that's doing it. Thank you!

[JuanSantizo710]

I've tried this filter in three machines they all have capable 3D GPU video cards and enough RAM.. the filter when it works is crawling and when it doesn't work gives you an error message... I installed photoshop version 20 meaning the prior to this version and the filter works perfectly on any machine so is NOT THE DAMN COMPUTER VIDEO CARD IS THE FILTER THATS MESSED UP

[Arno Coenen]

I think so too, my videocard is just fine. I realy liked this filter and miss it now (-:

[davescm]

It's a long time since this thread was started, 3D is now deprecated and being removed from Photoshop.

https://helpx.adobe.com/uk/photoshop/kb/3d-faq.html

The last recommended version if you need 3D features in v22.2

Dave